Follow your heart

After the amazing six years, I spent of learning with Zubair group of companies, I saw that it came to a time that I have to move into another career to explore different employment opportunities in Oman. Which I did and started applying within various industries to seek opportunities and during that time I got three employment offers from different industries, one was from retail, second from telecommunication and one in the hospitality industry. Two was as Human Resources Manager and one was as Performance Management Specialist. Looking at all of them, I am sure everyone will think telecommunication was the best in terms of security and future. Yes, it is, however; I took the risk that a lot of others wouldn’t take and chose to follow my heart and passion and join the hospitality industry.

I took the risk for a couple of reasons, first which I would consider personal; I am very much in love with travel, tourism, and hospitality. I would say it is in my DNA as since I was little, I use to travel a lot with my family and realized that this is what I want to do, I also remember that I always use to pretend to be a tour guide when we travel or even dreamt of becoming a pilot one day. Secondly, I believe that Tourism is playing a vital role in the economy of Sultanate of Oman and it is developing in our country, which I took the opportunity to become part of that change and to be among the pioneer in the industry. Moreover, this industry has major challenges in terms of attracting the locals in terms of recruitment therefore, I thought of being part of it, and hope to make change and understand the reasons for why locals don’t want to join the industry although I would say and based on experience it is among the industries which really develop its employees and train them. A huge investment goes into that factor. So I joined the Radisson Blu Hotel, Muscat as the Human Resources Manager in March 2014.

At this stage, I really wish to advise you all to always follow your heart and passion in order to succeed as remember, you will be able to work more and have fun if you do what you really love and have a passion for. When I took the hospitality role, a lot of people around me thought I am doing the wrong step but I took it as a challenge and to follow what I always dreamt of and I always carry this quote in my head “Make sure that you always follow your heart and your gut, and let yourself be who you want to be, and who you know you are. And don’t let anyone steal your joy.” ~ Jonathan Groff~